In which I ramble happily

Salt Lake News

I just got home from a long weekend in Denver and my French Praxis scores FINALLY showed up. 192 out of 200. I needed only 181 to "demonstrate compentency". Ha! Take that State Office! :-p

In other recent news, I won the much esteemed Lemon Expert story challenge in the Utah Writing Monkey's1st short story challange. Yay me. I am mostly happy because this is the first time I ever managed to complete a short story, much less one that was any good. So now perhaps I will be able to get the more instant satisfaction of creating short stories rather than exclusively working on novels. I mean, I love the novel writing, but gaaaaah... finishing one is not a daily or even monthly occurance for me. Nice to have some visible progress to mark. Now I have to come up with the seed for the next challenge. To my surprise, I actually have a ton of ideas. But I think I'll try to do something slightly different than last time.

Denver Trip News

I was in Denver to visit one of my college roommates. It's interesting how much we both have changed in the last ten years (we met Freshman year, fall of 1994). We just don't have the same values or goals or... frame of reference. So we get along great while talking about things we shared in the past, or about our families. When we start talking about present or future though... it just felt weird. The feeling like "who is this alien inhabiting my friend's body"? But then, I don't act the same way around her as I do around the people I know from recent years.

Maybe I am just profoundly unable to understand an intelligent, successful woman who repeatedly says things like "I want a baaaaby. I want to get married. I don't want to buy my own house because I just want to get married and have a baby. My biological alarm clock is ringing." and yet is totally unable to appreciate a book of penis humor. Seriously, the girl would not look at the funny book of penises (peni?) (Frankly, I can't think of another body part with quite the comic value... but maybe that's just me.) So I had to ask her: "You, ah, DO know where babies COME from, right?" And she just says... "Oh, Kaatheeee."

College Flashback

Have I mentioned the fact that for the first twenty-two years of my life I went not by "kate" but by "kathy"? Oh yes, it is true. However, we had this roommate senior year at Dartmouth named Ellen. And she was--to put it as politely as possible--a fucking psychopath. Perhaps her inherent instability was tipped over the edge by the fact that she had lost her virginity in our very same senior apartment when she was but a sweet freshman. Perhaps in the quest to erase those memories, she paraded a handful of men through our apartment and her bedroom that year... often we would come home to find her sitting on the futon (my futon) in the living room, watching TV with some guy, oblivious to the fact that her miniskirt had slid up around her hips and we could all see her flower print underwear. She drank my gin. And tonic. And wine. And diet coke. (back when I used to drink Diet Coke like water). But her most annoying habit was to overuse people's names in conversation. "Kaaatheeee, do you understand what I mean?" "Kaaaaatheeee, I don't know what you're talking about." "Have you seen my [butt ugly] scarf, Kaaaaatheeee?" I shudder just to remember it. Gaaah.

End Flashback

So the point of that little tangent is that I cannot FUCKING STAND to be called Kathy anymore. Oh, my family can get away with it. I don't even register when they do it, because they've always called me both Kathy and Kate fairly interchangeably. But there's a way of saying it that just sets my teeth on edge and that's what my friend in Denver was doing.

Other than the personality conflict surprises, it was a good trip. I spent Saturday on my own because KB had an all day conference thingy at her new job. Really nice day - did some grocery shopping, explored the area, went to Washington Park to run/walk, read, and cooked dinner. Second day she and I spent together... went to lunch, went downtown, went to see Finding Neverland which was probably the best movie I've seen since The Incredibles. Though, clearly, quite a different style of film. Monday KB got off work and we had a pretty good day. I went back to Wash Park for a run/walk. KB didn't want to do the park, so she stayed home and had her dad come and take away her old couch (just bought a new one - tough life). We went to Hammond's Candies factory store and took their tour. I think the best part was watching all the little kids with their faces pressed to the windows, watching all wide-eyed at the candy makers working. Of course, we bought a bit of candy on our way out. Only polite. Heh. Dinner we did in Boulder, after browsing their trendy little shops. Ah, if only I had money. And then home again just in time to catch a phone call from my Karlyn and from Sylvan who want to hire me as of tomorrow. Yay.

And with those thoughts (mostly the candy and dinner ones), I think I'll hit the gym before I need to pick Jay up at the airport. It's good to be home.